


searching for my father's power

by okayantigone



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: ADHD, Autism, Civil War Team Iron Man, Daddy Issues, Family, Gen, Heart Attacks, M/M, Past Abuse, Tony Stark Gets a Hug, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony Stark is Good With Kids, mentions of suicide/suicidal ideation, not team Cap friendly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-16
Updated: 2018-07-16
Packaged: 2019-06-11 14:16:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15317283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/okayantigone/pseuds/okayantigone
Summary: peter parker gives tony stark a literal heart attack. well, technically it's cardiac arrest, and it's also not his fault.





	searching for my father's power

tony has always danced the low and dirty tango with alcoholism. he eyes the table with his decanters, and debates the shaking in his hands, wonders if he’s too old now, to learn this new trick called sobriety, if it’s even worth it.

steve rammed that shield into his chest, knocked the reactor back where it used to be, through his artificial sternum, and he may not have beheaded tony, but he shaved years off his shaky lifespan anyway, and now tony’s high off his ass on painkillers, and he wants a drink, and he wonders if this is his moment of clarity, but the truth is, he made the decision a while ago.

he made the decision when peter parker looked at him like he hung the sun and stars in the sky, and admitted quietly “you saved my life now, but you probably don’t remember it.”

a kid in an iron man mask faces a hammer drone.

that’t how tony feels, limping his way through the silent darkness of the penthouse, facing the drink, and the shadow howard casts over it. and if he takes that drink now, he will be everything he said he would never become, he will be everything steve has always thought of him. just like his father, but _worse_.

his hands shake, but he limps into bed. “jarvi – friday. lights, 20 percent.”

 

he has to sleep on his back, because his left arm is fucked, but he’s got too many broken ribs on the right, and he can’t sleep on his stomach, because the reactor is back and it _hurts._ he wishes rhodey was in the bed beside him, and then, probably, he’d feel better, but unlike him, platypus doesn’t have a habit of breaking himself out of hospital against doctor’s orders, and platypus can’t even walk and –

 

no, tony brain. shut up, it’s sleeping time. time to sleep.

 

he pulls the blankets up until they’re right under his chin, their weight soft and comforting, and they smell like the good detergent that he likes, and he can hide his face in the silk stuffed duvet, and even if sleeping doesn’t happen immediately, he’s still pretty happy in his fluffy cocoon.

 

he wakes up screaming.

 

it’s always been his MO, and while rhodey’s doing physio in DC, tony wakes up screaming, every night, several times a night, drowns himself in coffee, and makes the kid the world’s coolest suit, and makes himself another cool suit, and makes _rhodey_  an even cooler suit that fits the braces.

 

he runs interference with the accords committee. younger ross is very accommodating and seems almost apologetic every time they talk. he reminds tony of coulson, which is a whole different bucket of bears he doesn’t even want to go near. older ross is less accommodating, and tony gives as good as he gets, leaving him on hold at ever chance, purely so he can watch the little red light blink. he’s always liked that, so really, he didn’t lie to ross when he said that’s why he put him on hold all the fucking time. that it rose his blood pressure to nearly fatal levels was only a bonus as far as tony was concerned. although he’d been through (multiple) heart attacks and wouldn’t wish them on anyone, he’d make an exception for the man who kept his brucie bear away. then again, he’s not entirely ready to have bruce yell at him and call him names too.

 

he tries not to think too hard about the fact that the only people on his side as his college buddy, the creature he partially created, and a fifteen-year-old who really doesn’t know better. he’s also got one hundred and seventeen governments on his side. there’s no way he’s in the wrong about this, he knows it.

 

he may be supremely stupid when it comes to human interaction, but he _knows_ this.

 

he wonders if he was any better at being a person, if he would have been able to read steve’s lies all over his face every time they talked. if maybe everyone else knew – if everyone else could tell, except tony. that’s another can of cantaloupes he doesn’t want to approach.

 

it’s good to have the kid around though. the kid has his same brain – talks a mile a minute and has no idea what people mean when they say words at him, much like tony didn’t at that age, and needed rhodey and obie to interpret everything for him.

 

“you’re special,” obie would always say. “but if people knew…”

 

right. well. how well had listening to obie turned out in the end?

 

when his brain veers dangerously close to those thoughts, he locks them out, picks up the wrench and goes to town on some schematics.

 

his lab is quiet without bruce’s white noise machine, and the sound of his pencis scratching on the paper, because he liked taking notes the old fashioned way, and even though it drove tony up the wall, it meant he wasn’t alone, but then the kid starts showing up and hanging out, tinkering on one of the workbenches, and suddenly he’s not alone anymore. peter uses a pen, thank fuck, and his chatter is one of the sweetest noises in the world.

 

after that vulture fiasco, tony had decided to be a lot more hands-on with his mentoring, and actually attempt to mentor, which led to a lot of thinking … circling back to obie. because all things considered, obie hadn’t been half-bad at mentoring him. then again, everyone was a fucking improvement to howard. he doesn’t want to touch the Jarvis box with a ten foot pole. he’s not ready for it. probably never will be. as far as frame of references go though, as long as he doesn’t go around backstabbing peter behind his back, and vivisecting him or otherwise attempting to remove his heart, doing the obie way probably isn’t terrible.

 

so he buys the kid pizza, and they tinker in companiable silence – or well, tony is silent. peter runs his mouth. obie always used to let tony run his mouth. he’d never once smacked tony across the face into silence, and that already made him the best goddamn adult in tony’s book – him and Jarvis and ana – a secret club of co-conspirators.

 

tony would never hit the kid – he can’t even stomach helping him with his marital arts – thank god happy took over that – and he’d never tell him to shut up either. so. yay?

 

peter talks. a lot. like tony used to talk, before everyone kept telling him to keep fucking quiet. even pepper didn’t like it when he rambled a lot. the avengers certainly hadn’t. that’s why he liked being alone with his robots. he could talk to them for hours on end, and they wouldn’t say anything, and if he had had to _build_ himself friends that would listen to him – well.

 

peter talks.

 

he talks about school, and ned and legos, and tony listens to the kid talk about star wars for a solid 5 hours, 46 minutes and 34 seconds, and it’s the most exhilarating thing that’s ever happened to him, and peter has the biggest smile on his face the whole time.   
  
“sorry, mr. stark, you probably think it’s dumb.”   
  
except he doesn’t. he thinks it’s brilliant. he’d never have considered the ramifications of rey and kylo’s force bond, and he hadn’t checked up on the Extended Universe since before Afghanistan, so he’d just had all his knowledge gaps filled.

 

he doesn’t realize how much he’s missed having a genuine conversation with someone other than his robots until he talks for nearly three hours about this one physics paper he’d read last night before bed. rhodey was in meetings with his doctor all day, and by the time he got in for the weekend tony’s excitement will have worn off, and he’s pretty sure t=most of it goes over the kid’s head, but then peter asks him _questions_ like he’s been _listening._ tony answers.

 

he’s on his knees in front of rhodey, tightening the screws in the braces, and then he leans his head on rhodey’s thigh, and rhodey rests a hand in his hair.

 

“remember that thing you asked?” rhodey asks quietly, carefully. tony has asked a lot of things. he’d come into MIT at 14, brainweird as fuck, with no idea of how to interact with people, but brimming with energy and optimism, eager to _try._ god. he wishes sometimes he could reach back in time to that sweeter younger tony, and pull him into his arms. the two of them would walk away hand in hand into the sunset, and he’d raise himself good and proper. it’s what he’s trying to do with peter right now. he hums while rhodey scratches his scalp.

 

“in 2003,” rhodey clarifies. suddenly tony’s on his knees, and not because he likes kneeling for rhodey, and he’s hyperventilating. rhodey kneels beside him in a fluid motion – good to know the braces can take the speed of normal human reflexes – and pulls him into his chest.

 

when rhodey said no it had shattered tony’s world, and then he’d shipped out, and they hadn’t talked for months, and tony had taken an entire bottle of sleeping pills with a bottle of his dad’s finest whiskey, and they never talked about it again.

 

rhodey shushes him and mutters nonsense, petting his back until tony stops dry heaving.   


rhodey takes tony’s face in both hands and kisses his forehead tenderly. “little genius,” he murmurs, and tony whines. it’s been so long, and he’s so starved for it. “i think… after i get discharged… i think it will be a yes, this time.”   
  
tony buries his face in rhodey’s neck and cries. he is the second of rhodey’s two great loves in life, and the first is the military. he’s okay with that. he’s the consolation prize.   
  
“n-no,” he mumbles.   
  
“no?” rhodey seems surprised, but not hurt.   
  
“they’re not gonna discharge you,” tony sniffles. “i’m gonna… i’m gonna make you walk again.”

 

_even if it means you’re never going to marry me_.

 

rhodey starts crying too, pulling tony back into himself, and tony lets him, because he’s old, and tired, and broken, and he has never been more truly loved, and he has never been more alone.

 

they go to bed together, and he sleeps with his head on rhodey’s chest, and he can hear his heartbeat, and when he wakes up, he muffles his screams, biting into the meat of his palms until they bleed.

 

he’s having a great day working with the kid in the lab. the kid’s doing his own thing with the web-shooters, and tony’s finally streamlined the braces enough to pitch them to the board for mass productions and put SI in the market of medical equipment. he ordered in sushi, and ate all the rice part of the nigiri and none of the fishy parts, and the rice was deliciously round and soft, and now he’s blasting metallica in his headphones, and mouthing the words to the pitch presentation to himself, snapping his fingers to the beat of the music and his internal monologue.

 

he pauses the music while he taps in the written part of the presentation, although pepper – who’s gotten brilliant at deciphering his shorthand – will have a look at it and fix it, probably.

 

peter’s humming softly to himself, rocking back and forth enthusiastically while he scribbles in his notebook, and checks his phone – probably laughing at memes, or whatever it is that entertains the youth these days.   


tony folds the holo-screens he’s working on, and walks over to the kid’s work station. patting him on the shoulder.

 

he remembers the first time rhodey had ever given him a hug – it was one of those one-armed bro-hugs – and tony had nearly cried. he’d never known human touch could feel so nice. the kid’s as touchy as he is – they aren’t quite to hugging yet. tony’s new shield-shaped chest scar probably means he won’t be up to hugging anyone except his rhodey bear for the next thirty years or so, but he pats the kid on the shoulder, and pets his hair, and it’s nice.

 

peter beams up at him, all adorable wide-eyed innocence, and tony can’t help but think that if he’d ever had a child, it would probably look something like peter. the kid gets o excited in explaining what he’s doing, he flips to a new page in his textbook, and starts sketching out some of the concepts, where words fail him to explain. there’s a few leaps here and there, but tony can follow along, and the part of his chest not constricted by his freshly installed arc reactor swells with pride.

 

“that’s fantastic, kid,” he says, and means every word. peter’s distracted by trying to make his fingers on the keyboard match the speed of his adorable, weird little brain.   
  
“thanks dad,” he says absent-mindedly, while tapping in the simulations for the new web fluid.

 

tony means to reply. he means to make a joke of it, but his head is ringing. dad.

 

spiderkid just called him dad.

 

this sweet, exciteable boy, with his sunny smile, and lego-obsession, who could infodump for hours, and listen to tony talk, and who  -

 

the pain of his knees hitting the floor is the last thing he feels. the kid calls out his name repeatedly. “mr. stark! mr. stark what’s wrong? friday, call an ambulance!”

 

all tony wants to do is open his mouth and ask peter to call him dad again. that had been nice.

 

peter is curled in on himself in one of the plastic cheairs at the hospital, chewing at the sleeves of his hoodie when he hears the clicky noise of ms. potts’ heels on the floos, and smooth hydraulics of rhodey’s braces as they approach, both of them stern faced. peter’s not good at expressions. the look angry. but maybe they’re scared? both? he’s not sure, and he wishes mr. stark was there, because he alwas knew, except mr. stark can’t do that, because he’s unconscious, because he went into cardiac arrest, because peter was stupid.

 

he hops out of his chair, and meets them halfway, “i’m so sorry,” he says, “i’m really sorry, i wasn’t thinking, it was an accident, i don’t know what happened, it’s my fault, i’m sorry, i was so dumb, please just don’t – “   
  
don’t what? don’t kick him out of the hospital? it’s what he deserves though.   
  
“peter,” rhodey says. he doesn’t sound very angry, “peter, calm down. what are you sorry for? what happened? was it a lab accident?”

 

peter shakes his head, and he wants to answer, but instead he cries, big fat tears rolling down his cheeks.   
  
“hey,” rhodey says, and puts his hand on peter’s shoulder. “kid, it’s okay, no one’s mad at you, hey.”

 

tony used to get like that, too sad to speak, confused, and scared, and full of all the nasty ugly crap howard had shoved in his head. “look at me,” rhodey coaxes gently. “tony’s fine. he’s got a heart condition. these things happen, but the doctors say he’ll be alright- that’s what the reactor’s for anyhow. can you tell me what happened?”  
  
peter shakes his head, chewing on his fingers and crying. rhodey guides him to the chairs, and they sit down while pepper goes to talk to the doctors. he waits for peter to calm down.

 

“i called him dad,” peter mumbles into the saliva-wet sleeve of his hoodie. “it wasn accident, i swear, i didn’t mean to and then he just…”

 

he doesn’t expect rhodey to laugh. except that’s exactly what the colonel does. it’s inappropriate as all hell, and he’s laughing too hard to tell peter he’s not in trouble. pepper is returning, and she’s eyeing them suspiciously – rhodey, bent over and laughing so hard that tears are streaming down his face – or maybe he’s laughing and crying at the same time, and peter who looks as confused as tony had looked the first time she broke up with him, and just as heartbroken.   


rhodey looks up at her at last, still laughing, his face wet with tears, and finally, finally, sheds much needed light on the situation. “the kid called him _dad_.”  
  
the noise pepper lets out is between a sob and shriek, and a laugh all in one, because of _course_ being shown basic human affection would put tony in hospital, and she reaches out to peter and wraps him in a hug, because the poor kid looks too damn sad and confused, and she doesn’t really have the words to explain why they’re laughing, except that everyone has hurt tony, somehow, always, everyone has found a way to take things from him, and this – compared what people, including the two of them – have done to him – this is nothing.

 

when the doctors tell them tony’s awake, peter is the one who runs through the door, and then freezes, teary eyed, staring at his mentor in his hospital bed. and then tony – brilliant and smiling like he didn’t just relieve his worst fear of almost dying, makes grabby hands for a hug, and peter throws himself into his waiting arms, and cries, sobs wrecking his entire body, “i was so scared, i was so scared,” while tony pets his back, and shushes him.

 

he feels so bad for worrying his kid – and it’s his kid now, isn’t it, since peter’s called him dad and all – that he even agrees to spend the night in hospital, and stops being a difficult patient for exactly two and half minutes.

 

he lets peter sleep in his hospital bed, curled into his side, sucking on the edge of the blanket, while rhodey naps in one of the armchairs, his hand outstretched, rough fingertips brushing the tops of tony’s scarred knuckles, and it’s the best damn sleep he’s had in his life.


End file.
